Address Collection - How to Make Sense of Your Data
Address collection can be a daunting task. It's important to collect clean data, whether you're collecting information for weddings, holiday cards, or parties.
A valid address can save businesses time and money. Invalid addresses can lead to returned mails, extra fees and missed opportunities. Address verification tools can cut costs by ensuring addresses are correct.
ArcGIS Solutions for State and Local Government
Address collection is vital for local government and is a key element of managing geospatial data. Many governments are struggling to manage authoritative address repositories. They require a simple workflow to capture the physical location at an early stage in the development of an address, standard map products that inform decision makers and the general public about quality and accuracy of their addresses, and tools to share authoritative addresses with other agencies.
Local government staff employ Esri solutions to meet these requirements. These pre-built maps and applications are designed around specific workflows, making it easy for local governments of all sizes and levels of geospatial knowledge to adopt them for improved efficiency and understanding.
According to Scott Oppmann, State and Local Government Solutions Team Director, Esri, solutions are organized into categories that represent "the most commonly-used requirements in local and state government." Click here to see the complete list of capabilities.
Address Field Inventory for example, includes a set of tasks to help you create an address layer that is based on a list of verified sites that are collected via an online form. The feature layers can be used to generate USNG coordinates and a mailing address. The solution allows you to divide a street at a specified point, calculate municipal boundary, and update address attributes in the master road table.
Another example of an Esri solution is Managing Address Field Operations, designed to help address authorities collect missing or inaccurate address information from external and internal stakeholders. Office staff can assign a task to their field employees to make use of the address crowdsourcing app on their mobile devices. They then can verify the submitted addresses and capture any new ones they observe while out in the field. The information is then automatically entered into the appropriate databases for further processing and publication.
The solution allows office staff to assign tasks by giving them the option of validating existing set address data using a specified accuracy level. This helps them spot mistakes, such as duplicate addresses or incorrectly matched addresses in the database. This information can be incorporated into the master database to improve the quality of the data and improve its accuracy.
Reverse Geocode Geoprocessing Tool
Whether you're looking for the location of a particular company or determine which region is the most lucrative reverse geocoding can help make sense of your data. Many mobile apps, including Uber and Lyft use reverse geocoding to convert raw GPS coordinates into information that drivers can comprehend. Retail chains use reverse geocoding to better understand their customers' shopping habits. Urban planners can also link address information to population density to determine the best location to build public facilities.
The Reverse Geocode tool turns point locations in a feature class into addresses by searching for the closest intersection or address based upon the distance of search. It can be used to reverse geocode one or more points or multiple points in a batch. The output is well-structured and ready to be integrated into other systems or tools.
It supports both custom and standard formats for address data, including the standard attributes X and Y of the Point Address feature, and the identification codes for POIs (Point of Interest). You can also specify the type of location of the geometry that matches it. It could be either a routing location or an area on the street that can be used to route, or the rooftop or parcel centroid of an address.
Additionally, you can make use of the tool to create an integrated locator by linking two or more existing locators together. The resultant locator will be back on the ArcGIS World Geocoding service if it cannot find an address matching your own local information.
Reverse geocoding is a costly here process. This is especially true if you are working with a lot of coordinates. You'll have to keep within Esri's free usage level--which is approximately 200 thousand monthly requests or you'll be charged. Another option is to purchase a service that will convert coordinates into addresses en masse for you.
It's crucial, as a final point, to verify the accuracy and completeness of any address information that you receive from your customers using reverse geocoding. This can be done by using an API for address verification that is CASS-certified such as PostGrid. This will ensure that the addresses that you use for your direct mail campaigns will be delivered to your customers.
Data Assistant Add-in
The Data Assistant add-in contains a set of tools designed to assist you in moving data from one dataset to another that may have distinct data structure. You can use these tools to perform a variety of tasks, such as concatenating multiple sources into a single target field or dividing the string into multiple fields to be used as targets.
To use the Data Assistant add-in, you must first install it. Click the Start button, choose Control Panel, then Add or remove programs. Uninstall Microsoft Data Assistant 1.0 by following the instructions on the screen.
Once the Data Assistant addin is installed it can be set up to create an appropriate source/target configuration file. You can then load or replace data by using that file. The Data Mapping tool includes a variety of ways to convert data between formats and handling specific characters.
To learn more about the Data Assistant add-in, including how it can assist you with your address collection needs, check out how to use the Data Assistant add-in. This solution explains how to use the Data Assistant add in and how to use tasks to collect data from parcels and update data on parcels and populate the community layer.
Data Validation Tool
A trusted tool for validation of addresses is a powerful weapon that helps businesses maintain integrity of their data and improve operational efficiency. It ensures that mail goes to the correct location, invoices are delivered to the correct person and marketing campaigns reach their intended audience, thus increasing the accuracy of delivery systems and improving overall user satisfaction. When choosing a validation tool be sure to choose one with comprehensive country coverage and seamless integrations into business processes. Consider the pricing structure and choose tools that have a high return on investment.
Whether you are collecting addresses on handwritten forms at a retail store, or during digital inputs during an online checkout, or from integrated data coming in from CRM systems, accurate initial data entry is vital to reducing shipping errors and returns and ultimately increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. This requires more than just using a conventional postal code or ZIP code lookup; it requires a process of thorough address verification and collection.
This process begins with an advanced data parsing program that breaks the address into its constituent elements, including street name, city name, and postal code. The tool then compares these components with commercial databases to verify their accuracy. It then standardizes an address to meet global postal norms. For example, it converts extended forms into standard abbreviations or capitalization.
The address is geocoded to verify its location. This step is particularly important for companies that are globally-based. It allows them calculate shipping costs accurately and to provide transparency to customers. This decreases the chance of costly delays caused by incomplete or inaccurate information. In addition, a robust geocoding API can help businesses comply with international shipping regulations and avoid customs-related issues.
Once the address is verified, it is updated in CRM and enterprise resource planning software to ensure that every customer contact, shipment or service delivery is based on accurate data. Precise address data can also simplify the logistical aspect of operations by simplifying logistics and procurement processes, which saves time and money.